Here I Am, This is Me
by Roaming Tigress
Summary: One villain in particular has always challenged Darkwing like no other, but who is this villain, and what is his story?
1. Prologue

**Here I Am, This is Me**

**Prologue  
**by Roaming Tigress

In a city of a thousand criminals, death and destruction lurks around every corner. Every night and day, the metropolis of St. Canard becomes a battle ground for power and control; rouges ranging from high school street gangs to the elite underground criminal organizations carry out their dirty deeds under the nose of the police force. It is every villain out for himself in that dog-eat dog-world. There is no time to mope about the loss of pride, for behind every footstep there is always somebody out there to do you in.

More often than not, the duty of protecting citizens from the wrath of the less than desirable falls to that of a purple-masked, cape-wearing drake mallard of a vigilante -- Darkwing Duck. Over the years, this dashing do-gooder with the ego the size of Saturn has come to learn the ways of the criminals. Daring death, he has succeeded in defeating Negaduck's dastardly deeds, Bushroot's botanical warfare, and Megavolt's electrical larceny. He has tangled with the likes of the Liquidator, even Taurus Bulba, but one villain in particular has always challenged him like no other.

This criminal is Valentino Volatili -- Agent Steelbeak -- and this is his story.

Disclaimer: Steelbeak, Darkwing Duck, and all other characters mentioned except for Javert J. Adair, Emillia, Roberto, Valentino, Andreas and Antontio Volatilli belong to Disney. Do NOT borrow ideas from or distribute this story without prior permission of the author at

Author's note: this is a revised, improved version of "Twisted Every Way" which was originally written in 2002. Certain aspects from that story have been changed or elaborated.


	2. How It all Began

**Here I Am, This is Me**

**How it All Began**  
by Roaming Tigress

Before I start talking about how I came to be one of St. Canard's most notorious criminals, I would to take the time to speak about the two individuals who brought me into the world, and unintentionally helped me shape into the reputation I so worked hard at getting.

My mother, Emillia Volatili, was born sometime in 1932, and was raised and born in Napoli, Italy. Average in everything -- built, good looks, hair length and height, she was a stout mixed-bred Bantam hen with light cream feathers. Her brown eyes that matched the colour of her wavy hair, sparkled with the intelligence that I would come to inherent. As far as personality, she was mellow, slow to show temper and exceptionally outgoing, but at the same time, not afraid to speak her mind in a time when woman were generally segregated to the kitchen.

She was a good business woman, and owned the small but popular _Emillia Cafe_ in her hometown. When my mother wasn't dutifully taking care of her customers, she was out and about, traveling to faraway lands. Emillia loved to visit the places she daydreamed about in her childhood; the deepest, darkest reaches of Africa, the Amazon River, Australia, India, just to name a few. She loved to explore new cultures, to be in the places she read about in books. When Emillia wasn't on a safari, she was exploring art museums across Europe and North America. Art, namely sculpture and oil paintings, was another one of her interests, as was the theater, dancing and studying foreign languages.

My father, Roberto, was somewhat of a mysterious figure; I never knew his surname nor his date of birth. In some ways, he was very much like me; attractive, apparently temperamental, and apparently lacked the suavity that I became famous for. From the colour photographs that I've seen of him, I knew that he had a built that was similar to mine, and his feathers were a dirty white, and his wolfish, punishing eyes were a deep yellow. The only thing I knew of his past was that he was a hard working, no-nonsense farmer who grew wheat for a living after his father had passed on.

It was in the spring of 1955 when my mother first met with Roberto. From the diary I stole from her bedroom, allow me to tell you how that meeting went.

_ April 5, 1955 _

_ A rooster came into the cafe; an exceedingly handsome, brawny rooster. Roberto, his name was. It isn't often that you see many of them in Napoli; most of them stay out in the countryside, working the farms, so it was something when he walked in. He came in half an hour before closing time, just as the last customers left. Initially he was a very reserved gentleman, but warmed up after I told him a little about my self and my travels. He told me he was visiting an old friend of his from collage, and that he took up after the family wheat farm when his father died of a heart attack. _

_ I hope he stops in again, he intrigues me so. _

Three years later, in another diary . . .

_July 16th, 1958_

_ It has been three years since Roberto stepped into Cafe Emillia. I had almost forgotten about him, but he hadn't forgotten about me. By chance I met up with him at the park, just by Swan Lake. _

_ He proposed to me -- I accepted. I nearly got into an argument with mother who told me that I am jumping into things too fast. Perhaps I am, but how could I not accept an offer from such a suave, handsome gentleman such as Roberto? He may "just" be a farmer to them, but in my eyes, he is something much more. She didn't seem to care much for Roberto when I invited him over, but it is me who would be spending the rest of my days with, not her!  
_

Emillia sold her cafe to move in with Roberto in the Tuscany countryside. She would miss the success that she had with her business, the many customers she's developed a close bond with, but she had enough of the life in the bustling city. Besides that, she wanted to raise her children in the fresh, wide-open countryside where she was raised.

On August 10th, 1959, my mother gave birth to twins -- Andreas and Antonio. The pride and joy of Emillia and Roberto, they were the typical picture-perfect, adorable babies that every parent dreams of having.

I wasn't.

Disclaimer: Steelbeak, Darkwing Duck, and all other characters mentioned except for Javert J. Adair, Emillia, Roberto, Valentino, Andreas and Antonio Volatilli belong to Disney. Do NOT borrow ideas from or distribute this story without prior permission of the author at

Author's note: this is a revised, improved version of "Twisted Every Way" which was originally written in 2002. Certain aspects from that story have been changed or elaborated.


	3. The Birth of The Devil's Child

**Here I Am, This is Me**

Chapter Two  
**The Birth of The Devil's Child**  
by Roaming Tigress

The devil's child was born on a dreary, rainy evening of March 20th, 1962, just shortly after a hailstorm. It seemed as if the higher powers from above, whomever they may be, had decided to add more drama to the scene of the crime.

I came into to the world at exactly eight o'clock that night, screaming at the top of my little lungs as I was taken into the hands of Roberto the moment I came out of the birth canal. Even that early in life, my character was developing by the second and I wanted to make my voice be heard to all! Right off the bat, I was a fighter.

Being born a month and a half prematurely, I was so tiny that I was able to fit right in my father's palm as he dried me off and clipped off the cord. I was the result of an accidental pregancy, but nonetheless, Roberto was a proud father. He was responsible for bringing yet another son into the world that would carry on his genes and the family name. He wasn't all that concerned that I was undersized, for he was confident that I would grow to be big and strong, just as he did.

Unfortunately, that pride lasted for all of five seconds when he held me up to take a good look at my face. He saw my grotesquely deformed beak that was twisted in a permanent half-smile, half-snarl. The lower jaw stuck out like a bulldog's, and the upper mandible was nearly split in half due to a cleft palate. He spat in my face and called me a devil's child, and after placing part of a bloodied cloth over my head, he hastily handed me over to Emillia. He was too ashamed to admit that I was his flesh and blood, too close minded to look past my appearance. Rumor has it that Roberto was a God-fearing man, but he sure was not acting like one on that infamous night.

My mother couldn't understand what was wrong as she hugged me, until the corner of the cloth was pulled away from my head. She didn't know what to do, or what to say, but she had no difficulty in knowing what she thought of me. Like my father, she was disgusted, shocked, and unable to love me the way a mother should. The instinct to snuggle up close to her for warmth and protection was strong even in my first few minutes of my life, and she held me away as I tried to get closer. All my mother wanted was for me to be gone, and all I wanted was to be with her. I started crying again, until she half-heartedly held me close to her breast. Feeling safe, my crying ceased as I lulled into my first nap.

Dispose of him, father ordered, in any way necessary. Roberto knew of a doctor who had euthanized unwanted and sickly infants, albeit illegally, and he suggested this to her. He would have loved to see me take the big sleep following the prick of a needle, but he was out of town. He was out of the rat poison he had stored in the barn, and didn't own a gun to quickly take care of me. There were the knives in the kitchen, but he didn't want to tarnish them with my blood.

Emillia thought of the well in front of the house, snapping my neck, and literally throwing me out to the wolves that roamed the forest behind the farm. She had heard of the cruel farmers who would take litters of kittens and puppies and stuff them inside burlap bags, and toss them into the river to drown. It would be an easiest enough thing for her to do, the nearest river as only a quarter of a mile away. She would do it when it was night, so that the locals wouldn't see what she was up to.

However, what if someone had found out about the infanticide and reported it to authorities? With regret, Emillia decided that she couldn't kill me. It wasn't out of pity that she chose this decision, but rather, cowardice, the fear of persecution. She didn't want to go to jail for putting an unwanted child out if its misery -- and hers. There was the adoption option, but who would adopt me? Nobody, she figured, because I would just take the space that a "normal" one could have. For a moment she contemplated plastic surgery to be done immediantly, but soon shoved that thought aside. She figured I wouldn't live very long, being as fragile as I was, and realized that she was stuck with me.

At only three years old, my brothers were too young to comprehend what was going on. They stood in the doorway, too naive to know that their little brother had gone from an innocent, helpless newborn to a bad omen in just ten minutes.

Disclaimer: Steelbeak, Darkwing Duck, and all other characters mentioned except for Javert J. Adair, Emillia, Roberto, Valentino, Andreas and Antonio Volatilli belong to Disney. Do NOT borrow ideas from or distribute this story without prior permission of the author at

Author's note: this is a revised, improved version of "Twisted Every Way" which was originally written in 2002. Certain aspects from that story have been changed or elaborated.


	4. Apathy

**Here I Am, This is Me**

Chapter Three  
**Apathy**  
by Roaming Tigress

As the months past since that miserable spring evening, my mother came to realize that I was a much stronger child than what she had imagined -- and hoped. She hadn't expected that I would live to see me reach a month old, let alone a year. Still, my birthday, just like my first Christmas would be just another day, as her feelings, along with those of my father, did not soften with time.

Instead of celebrating my birthday, mother and father went out for supper and a night at the opera and hired Grandmother Anita and Grandfather Adriano Volatili to look after us. They were a well-to-do couple who were unaware of my existence, for I was kept locked away from the world behind the confines of my bedroom. Emillia never took me out there show off to her friends or family members whenever they came over, for the little mishapen runt wasn't anything to show off and brag about. I was usally given sleeping pills during these times, as to not betray the presence of a dark family secret.

Just like on the day of my birth, the day I turned a year old was a stormy night. Thunder and lightening frightened me as much as it did any child at my age. I curled up in a tight ball and whimpered, hoping that whatever scary monster that was making that noise would go away and not hurt me. There were no soft toys for me to snuggle up with for security; just a flat pillow and a quilt that had looked as is if it had seen the centuries. As the storm worsened, my cries for help became more desperate, and soon what was kept behind that white-painted door was no longer uknown. Whoever was behind there, was desperately crying out for help.

It was my grandmother who first found me. Initially she was taken aback my appeareance, not because of my face but rather my size. A young rooster of a year old should be plump, with plenty of baby fat and fluff to pinch. Not me. I was all skin and bones, and my feathers were a dirty offwhite fuzz instead of that bright yellow fluff you see on those Easter chicks. I still hadn't recovered from a bout of pnemonia that was caused by Emillia neglectfully leaving the window open on a cold night some four months ago, and it showed.

I wasn't used to used to being handled, and I shrieked horribly as she removed me from the crib. Despite this, my grandmother couldn't put herself to walk out of the room and leave me all on my own to escape from the noise. She stayed to give me my first present ever -- a hug. For a child in my position, a hug was the best gift I could ever recieve. With me still in her arms, she left my room to give me my first toy. It was a teddy bear, which I still have to this day. I immediately sought comfort in that toy that was bigger than I was and after a year, I finally had someone to love me.

If only for a moment, Anita would become my angel. She even resembled one with her blonde hair, white feathers and blue eyes. It was no small wonder as to why Adriano married her; she was beautiful, with a heart to match.

Grandmother Anita couldn't comprehend why her daughter would let me slip away like I was doing. Every rib, every vertebrae could have been felt with a gentle touch. There was no question of it, I was being neglected. Emillia was taught to treat others with kindness and respect if she wanted to be treated fairly decently. Emillia's morals snapped when I came into the picture, she thought. My condition had to be reported to the authorities, and she took me over to her husband to show him proof of my condition. Naturally she may have loved her daughter, but she also loved her grandson and my welfare had to come first before anything else.

Never a very emotional man for the most part in his life, Adriano was apathetic to whatever was going on around him. A small child that was in need of help and nurturing was no exception to that rule. He intimidatingly loomed over me, scowling as he saw me hide my face into the bear's soft brown fur. He neither had my parent's outright scorn nor his wife's pity for me; I was just another thing that was in his field of vision. As Adriano wasn't being directly affected, my situation was not a concern for him. He snatched the phone away just as Anita was going to make a phone call to the police, telling her to mind her own business. It seemed that, aside from sharing appearance traits, both my father and grandfather alike had the same heart.

Grandmother gave my parents a speaking to when they came home, demanding as to why I was in the shape I was in and was promptly lied to. They told her that I became ill on the week she came over, and my recovery would be slow as I was born prematurely. Unfortunately, caring as my grandmother was, she was also very naïve and hadn't noticed the deceit and cruelty that was smoldering in my mother's eyes until it came too late. She was barred from the house after she discovered me, she left in tearsand I would not see her again until I was twenty.

For the longest time, apathy was what the treatment I received in place of tender loving care. In two birthdays time, though, that was going to change.

Disclaimer: Steelbeak, Darkwing Duck, and all other characters mentioned except for Javert J. Adair, Emillia, Roberto, Valentino, Andreas and Antonio Volatilli belong to Disney. Do NOT borrow ideas from or distribute this story without prior permission of the author at  
Author's note: this is a revised, improved version of "Twisted Every Way" which was originally written in 2002. Certain aspects from that story have been changed or elaborated.


	5. A Lesson Learned?

**Here I Am, This is Me**  
By Roaming Tigress

**Chapter Four**  
A Lesson Learned?

On the week before my third birthday, I would come to realize why I was kept locked behind that bedroom door whenever company was over, and why I was treated differently than my brothers. Even back then I had a shrewd mind. I knew better than to assume that Antonio and Andreas were getting more attention than I was just because they hogged it all and my parents gave into their demand, or that they did things to deliberately get their attention. The behavior of my parents had something to do with me, just as I had thought, and that was proven to me the hard way.

I was given a handheld mirror from my father as the first and only gift I would recieve from my parents. It was an old family heirloom, dating back to somewere in the nineteenth century. Typical of a child of my age, it held a fascination to me as I was -- and still am -- attracted to shiny and reflective things. That fascination lasted until saw what made me so different, and why I was called the devil's child since birth.

Frightened of seeing the distorted face in the reflection, I dropped the mirror on the kitchen floor and clung to my father's leg when the sound of the glass shattering startled me all the more. I was unaware of his fury building up inside Roberto; all I wanted was a hug to let me know that everything was going to be alright. Instead of the comfort I longed for so badly, I recieved a smack in the face which would be the first of several. I didn't understand what I did wrong, and cringed as he yelled at me in his native tounge. Right in front of my mother's apathetic eyes, he kicked me before storming off into the living room. To him, a family heirloom was more important than his son.

All I wanted from my father was his approval and forgiveness for every wrong that I had done. I told him I was sorry as best as a three year old with a malformed beak could. When there was no response from him, I crawled into his lap and gave him a hug. I was naive, and expected everything would be fixed with just those words and a cuddle alone. Nothing could be further from the truth and I was promptly shoved off of him, and watched forlornly as he and my mother went into the kitchen.

I was too young to understand what they were talking about behind the door, only that it very quickly escalated into a shouting match. Hearing my name mentioned in a particularly unpleasant tone, I slunk into my brothers' bedroom and hid behind them as they were involved in a boardgame -- I knew I was in some sort of trouble. Arguments between my parents were happening so often in the past few months that they didn't phase them in the least. It was me that needed to get used to them; I cringed even at the slightest raise of their voices.

The argument between my parents ended with the slamming of the side door. Roberto had offically walked out from the family, and I would later find out that the reaseon behind him leaving was that my mother was too much of a coward to kill me. From that moment on, my life was to take another turn. Emillia decided to make her youngest son her scapegoat, for all of her sins were now mine.

Right before the frightenened eyes of Antonio and Andreas, my mother burst into the bedroom, grabbed me by one of my legs and dragged me out into the hallway. My brothers tried their best to defend me, but as they were only six years old at the time, there were limits as what they could do and were shoved back into the bedroom. Behind the closed door, I was beaten until I was nearly comotose. I couldn't magine how scared my brothers were when they heard my screams. Without a doubt, they likely thought they were going to be given the same treatment as well.

When she came to her senses and realized what she had done, Emillia rushed me to the hospital -- but only to save her tailfeathers. She explained to the doctors that one of my brothers tripped me while they were roughousing with one another, and on the same day, I fell down the stairs head first. The doctors fell for her lie, unaware of the danger they were doing by sending me back home. That wasn't the last time my mother would lay a hand on me -- quite the contrary, as a matter of fact. I would get hit for doing something so simple and innocent as giving her a hug, or even crying whenever there was a storm that scared me. Abuse was the norm in the Volatili family, and it never went away with time, and neither do the memories. Even today I bear the emotional scars of her treatment; I still shy away at the hands that come up to my face, and I get flashbacks of what happened to me all those many years ago.

When I turned four years old, my mother did something to me that was far worse than a smack in the face.

To this day, I can recall what happened to me after I crawled onto the table to raid the cookie jar. It was rare that I ever got a treat like my brothers did; if I did, it was as a reward for being seen and unheard. The rest was stolen away the moment Emillia's back was turned, but one day, I wasn't quite sneaky enough.

When I lost my footing and took a tumble, Emillia grabbed me by the collar of my shirt and pinned me to the ground. She had it in her mind that she was going to teach me why it is not a good idea to take things things that didn't belong to you, she proceeded to molest me to get her point across. She didn't get too far, thankfully. My brothers intervened before she was able to steal my innocence, and this time, they were successful. I couldn't understand why she was touching me in the way she was, and why her hands were on places they weren't on before. I hadn't learn the truth about this incident until I was fifteen, thanks to me evesdropping in on a phonecall between my brother Andreas and my mother.

From that incident on, I went from a precarius toddler who just wanted a little loving, to one who was afraid of the world -- just as mother wanted. I learnt that it was a bad thing to show how I really felt, for a whimper could very well a slap in the face. Old habits die hard, and to this day I still have a tendancy to hide my emotions. I am so good at it that only those who know me well know that I am betraying myself with veils of pride and arrogance, compensating for what I once was.

There was, however, one thing that my mother didn't succeed in doing; teaching me a lesson on stealing. What became a hobby for a deprived child developed into a talent, as so what would happen when my mother would sell the farm and move us to a neighbouthood in New York's Coney Island.

Disclaimer: Steelbeak, Darkwing Duck, and all other characters mentioned except for Javert J. Adair, Emillia, Roberto, Valentino, Andreas and Antonio Volatilli belong to Disney. Do NOT borrow ideas from or distribute this story without prior permission of the author at

Author's note: this is a revised, improved version of "Twisted Every Way" which was originally written in 2002. Certain aspects from that story have been changed or elaborated.


End file.
